[teemus]

Originally Posted by Sherlocked

Take Dzire for example and how that has become a hit and every one started introducing these chopped up sedans which are frankly neither here nor there. Some good examples are there too but majority are just weird. A car should look like a proper car. Not something like in your face which frankly appears from Mahindra's design language starting from XUV to the new Scorpio, KUV100 and Nuvosport with those excessive lines and creases. Only the TUV and Bolero looks proper. At least to my eyes.

Speaking of Mahindra and Compact Sedans, you forgot to mention the worst of the contraptions in today's market Verito Vibe. Mahindra was better off making it a hatchback instead of whatever it is today with it's less than half a foot boot.

[Petr0lHead]

What's happening in the B1 Segment just disheartens me. Tata showed such promise with the Tiago to shake up the market and due to production mismanagement you end up with ~4.5k numbers MoM for a car which should have done much better. Grand i10 on the other hand seems to be stealing the piece of the pie which Celerio is offering and which Tiago is not willing to take. Good work Hyundai!

[i74js]

Good to see Ford bouncing back in the mass market segment; all their product offerings (except the big daddy - Endy) are showing marked improvement in sales. One can assign various reasons to it, be it the price correction or the 250 Crore campaign or may be long waiting period of Brezza.

Ford - Can you please correct the DCT Figo pricing too?

A healthy competition is always good for the market instead of monopoly. MSIL for one was almost close to creating monopoly in the small / budget hatchback segment which is challenged by Kwid and how !

Kudos to Renault.

RediGo is clearly not a success and pricing it below Kwid is not serving the purpose either. Interiors of RediGo demand a lot and the sooner company addresses it, it will be good.

Ameo - I hope perspective customers take a note of this very competitive diesel offering; to me there is no match to Ameo Highline DSG in sub-4 meter segment.

All in all cheers to the festive season.

[autobahnjpr]

Now, if you were the top leadership of MSIL, you would be really worried. The strategies of past 2 years have brone fruit and they have achieved market share of about 50%. They have cracked and taken leadership of the sedan and entry level UV market with Ciaz and Brezza.
So, what do they do next to hold on to the trend? Remember it is always easy to achieve than to hold on. Will they now go bonkers and try hitting in other higher segments or ringfence their position in the current segments and build large entry barriers? It is a difficult question to answer. Lets wait and watch what MSIL does next.

As I said in one of earlier posts Link, Honda is the biggest loser in these times and they have not been able to arrest their slide for a long time now. Except the sedan segment they are no where and I personally feel that is due to their past brand loyalty of the City. If they do not do something drastic they face the danger of being irrelevant in the market like Chevrolet or Fiat.

[Sarath_MoJa]

It is a bumper month for the automobile industry. It is good to see some astronomical figures being posted by Maruti. The company is growing from strength to strength. Maruti continues to be the segment leader across all segments from A to C2.

Kwid seems to look like the antihero (i would not prefer calling him a villain ) with Duster, lodgy and pulse his trusted sidekicks ready to take on the superhero Alto and give him sleepless nights.

You price an Innova above a C class or A4 and still people will buy them. Such is the frenzy for this vehicle. I have no words to explain the dual involving our Pricey Innova and our Humble Omni fighting for the top spot in MUV segment.

[MadiMaama]

That's why you see Jeep, Land / Range Rover, Mahindra E2O, Force Motors etc. missing.

GTO, I got to know FML has stopped production of the Force One and Gurkha is about to be stopped. I have seen dealers carrying stocks of Gurkha from 2013/14

[jpcoolguy]

Thanks Aditya for the much awaited monthly sales and analysis.

Few observations from my side -

1. First thing that comes to mind on seeing Maruti Suzuki's historic monthly sales numbers, what is the contribution of the new launches. But surprisingly, except Baleno & Ciaz which have recorded their highest ever sales for a month, other cars have performed as "usual", but have outperformed themselves of their recent performances.

2. Alto, Swift & Wagon-R recorded their best month of this year, while Dzire & Ertiga their 2nd best month. On the contrary, Celerio recorded its lowest sales this year - possible due to stopping of diesel version and competition from Tiago?

3. Alto crossed 25K sales after quite a while, the last month being Feb '15 and the challenger Kwid crossed 10K sales second month on the trot, but Redi-Go sales has started going down after initial hoopla.

4. Grand i10 is clocking close to 12K sales numbers consistently for the past 5 months - is it the effect of introduction of Airbags in the lower variants too, which was the major grouse earlier?

5. Baleno recorded its best ever sales and also overtook i20 for the second time since its launch - the first time being last December. But still i20 managed post 10K+ numbers which is quite impressive.

6. Price reduction have helped Aspire but not its younger sibling. But there's no stopping the Dzire which remains the king of the CS segment.

7. VW seems confused now with Ameo sales dropping alarmingly which had also impacted Polo's sales since its launch. Will the arrival of diesel mill revive its fortunes?

8. Honda should be a relieved lot after the jump in sales in City, but sill Ciaz outperformed it with its best ever sales since its launch. But dwindling numbers of BR-V and Jazz should have them worried. The 1,209 units of Brio shipped were the Pre-facelift model or the new model?

9. Creta going strength from strength recording its best sales month since launch and Brezza has leap-frogged Creta consecutively for the last 3 months. Looks like Duster and Terrano are bearing the brunt.

10. Innova is maintaining 7K+ levels consistently, last 8 units of the Fortuner have been rolled out.

11. In the D-Segment Sedan space, Elantra has managed some decent sales but still Corolla remains the leader of the segment. But, for me the superb run of Superb takes the cake - since its launch Camry sales have going down. May be finally people are realising the VFM factor of Superb compared to the entry level Germans which are quite expensive for their segments.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by autobahnjpr

Now, if you were the top leadership of MSIL, you would be really worried. The strategies of past 2 years have brone fruit and they have achieved market share of about 50%. They have cracked and taken leadership of the sedan and entry level UV market with Ciaz and Brezza.
So, what do they do next to hold on to the trend? Remember it is always easy to achieve than to hold on. Will they now go bonkers and try hitting in other higher segments or ringfence their position in the current segments and build large entry barriers? It is a difficult question to answer. Lets wait and watch what MSIL does next.

A good point. Whatever they have done in the last 2 years has turned into gold. Hence not surprising that they are almost at 50% market share. There is one area where they have not yet ventured much and are now ready to get in- which is the performance hatch segment (Well, not real performance hatches-just in the India context). The upcoming Baleno Boosterjet is going to be an entry in this area and I assume and hope that it leads to such turbo petrol engines and better AT gearboxes making its way into some of the other premium models also. An Turbo Petrol S Cross with a Dual Clutch GB would be very welcome here.

[AYP]

1. The Elantra recorded decent sales after a long time and now sits at the second position in its segment. It would be interesting to see if it can topple the segment leader in the coming few months.

2. The sales number of the Superb is simply Superb. I wonder how it will be impacted by the launch of the 9th gen Accord. I hope that it stays at the top of its segment, considering the fact that the Accord is on its last legs.

3. Kudos to Maruti Suzuki for achieving 50% share in the Indian market. With the launch of Ignis, I expect the market share to cross 50%.

[rsm97]

Originally Posted by teemus

Speaking of Mahindra and Compact Sedans, you forgot to mention the worst of the contraptions in today's market Verito Vibe. Mahindra was better off making it a hatchback instead of whatever it is today with it's less than half a foot boot.

Its OT but few people I know mistake the Vibe as a hatch and I think it is difficult to fault them. My opinion is that it actually has a decent silhouette for a hatch (image attached).

The moment one realises that it actually is a sedan, it starts feeling weird.

[teemus]

Originally Posted by rsm97

Its OT but few people I know mistake the Vibe as a hatch and I think it is difficult to fault them. My opinion is that it actually has a decent silhouette for a hatch (image attached).

The moment one realises that it actually is a sedan, it starts feeling weird.

Exactly! It's actually got a very 90's look of M800 from the side. Which though dated is quite acceptable as a hatchback. Alas!

Sorry for being OT. End of discussion here.

[Sayeed]

Originally Posted by galant

Guys, am planning to book a Duster shortly.. But looking at is sales trend.. Is going southward. Should I be worried about it's longevity in Indian market? What do experts suggest. Of course Creta is a safer bet.. But heart is on Duster Awd .

A small saving grace (perhaps} is that atleast Renault - Nissan alliance is doing decent numbers so at least the dealer and service network should continue to improve. Or am I convincing myself.. Would love to hear thoughts.

Though Duster is a sad inclusion in the Top losers list, on its own it is a very capable car. if you have a reliable dealer in your city near you and you know he will be there on a long term basis then you should, also the resale value in comparison will be lower.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by RavenAvi

This gives a good and clear indication of how the new launches in the UV/Crossover/pseudo-SUV/pseudo-Crossover segments are faring (in the past 15 months, since the Hyundai Creta was launched):

Nice summary.

Can you please add Duster to this equation. And if you can add a graph, it would be great. That will clearly indicate the rise and fall of the sales coinciding with new releases (if any).

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by rsm97

Its OT but few people I know mistake the Vibe as a hatch.......

A bit more imagination and 'Vibe' could've been a very practical notch-back for trend-agnostic buyers.

For all the dated looks, the car rides better than a lot of cars a few segments higher. We had the original (Indian version) Logan 1.6P a few years ago, and it's still my family's benchmark for sturdiness and ride-quality whenever the topics come up.

[desdemona]

The market's getting even-more concentrated (barring the KWID phenomenon): 2/3 firms dominating each segment. The same, predictable ones. Clearly success is begetting success: the economies of scale in manufacturing AND esp in dealership coverage+aftersales service+resale 'values' is everso telling, all else (such as India's high automotive tariffs on cars and components, and little to no meaningful regulations) being equal. India's easily the most concentrated car significant-market in the world: maruti suzuki at 50% and climbing, etc.

It is no wonder most firms continue to accumulate losses on their already large ones, and some are still in india for the 'making in India' largely for exports rather than for the 'selling in India' successfully or rather: profitably.

Feels like there will be a few closures/withdrawals/surrenders of brands or even whole-firms, soon, as is happening on such a scale to several firms at the dealer level already. Unless export demand keeps some of them going, trying-further?

For eg., one suspects Fiat will be withdrawn in a couple of years or three, replaced by a re-attempt with JEEP+exports thereof of the localized smaller cheaper models, to supplement the engines and amt business? Chevy?? Nissan in favour of Datsun, Mitsu and Renault? The list of financially-bleeding firms in the Indian auto industry does not end there, either!